LotRO: The Minstrel Hits 15

Last night was my night to play Lord of the Rings Online with Kasul, and I was looking forward to it. Not that I don’t deeply enjoy all of my other games, I certainly do. The game is fresh and new to me, and the graphics (although they bugged a LOT last night due to my faulty card, it was no fault of the game) are absolutely incredible. I actually run the game better then I run EQ or EQ2 which surprised me. 

Kasul and I started at level 13, we had a handful of quests that took us out killing spiders, bears, wolves, and a few undead. We had a few close encounters, it seems at later levels crowd control comes in handy. Or I need to learn how to not cause so much agro from adds. Being a minstrel and constantly watching the health of others would mean that at times I would fail to watch my own health and suddenly look at it to see it dipping around the 10% mark. Woopsie! I’m still getting the hang of my skills, but it’s not too difficult. Right now I have some tier one and tier two ballads. I have ballads that trigger when I use a tier one, and then others that trigger when I use a tier two. So I’ve tried to put them into some semblance of order. I have two heals, which I keep together as well. I’ll admit now, I haven’t had a great deal of use for the heals yet unless I’ve been working on the epic quest line, some of the instances we did in progression last night were a little painful with 4-5 mobs rushing our little NPC guide at once but the majority has been fairly easy – not to mention our questing has taken us quite far in levels, so the encounters we’re currently dealing with are below our levels. Some quests are quickly turning grey – NOT that I mind, I love quests. 

I’ve got explorer as my craft, mostly so I could make light and medium armor as well as gather resources to sell. Kasul picked up Tinker, and has been making us some nice jewelery to wear. We spend a lot of time taking down the creatures of the woods and running after mines, all in the hopes of gaining a few precious points in crafting. 

It wasn’t long before we found ourselves at level 15, and each of us had a class quest to complete. Mine was fantastic, I had to head off to Bree to the Prancing Pony to meet up with Piper Prescott. Seems that he was short material for a new song so he would be sending me off with Leland Underhill to find new material. This was a solo instance, and I left the Fellowship a little while in order to complete it. Kasul went off on his level 15 class quest as well. I’ve mentioned before how engaging I find the quests, and that holds true still. I love the stories, and I love being drawn into the stories. For those who typically may not read the quest text, I find that LotRO’s method of presenting the quests to you makes you want to read them. Even if they are not all instanced with flashy backgrounds. I typically read quest text anyhow, just because. What can I say I’m weird that way. 

So it was that I followed Leland Underhill (hobbit of course) through some murky underground area swarming with bandits. I wondered what we could be after. Stolen goods? It must have been some precious family heirloom. He trudged on with determination. Each time we met with the bandits they relinquished their evil ways and fell to the side, this fearsome hobbit dragging an elf behind him who was frantically taking notes in order to compose some material for Piper. I had this huge ballad made up in my head, about this brave little (har) soul, and this monumental task he was undertaking. Through it all I eluded that the item must be of great importance and so very special – and then I learned what it was.

Leland Underhill was after his lunch.

Apparently that was the ‘precious’ stolen item that had been taken from him. 

I glared at the hobbit after that and refused to speak to him. Risking my life for his lunch was not how I had envisioned this afternoon going. I hastily scribbled more notes, left the hobbit to whatever the bandits had planned for him once the lunch was evenly dispersed among the troops, and headed back to Piper, who presented me with a very nice weapon, as well as the ability to wear medium armor – except I can’t find that ability anywhere and it seems that I don’t even have it. 

Eh? 

I have no idea what happened to it, if it was something I physically obtained and some how lost (I assumed it would be passive) but I clearly have no ability to wear medium armor. I know it was on the list of rewards, some where. Ah well, a mystery to figure out some other time. 

Edit: Thank you to all the comments below! I went back to the traits person and noticed the tabs across the right hand side – and low and behold there was medium armor under class. Thanks again! 11 silver? Ouch! Things are so pricey right now!

Kasul was feeling ill by the end of the evening, so he left early and I did a little crafting before switching over to my rune-keeper. She was level 7 and I played her to level 9, picking up the Historian craft along the way. Rune-Keeper is a lot of fun so far, the graphics to her spells keep me entertained, watching little runes fly around and huge bolts of lightning shoot from the sky. I haven’t played her long enough to be able to delve very far into the character, but again, so far it’s fun.

In other news – GU51 goes live today (baring some huge disaster) in EQ2! I know a lot of people are looking forward to that. Should be great! Not sure when I’ll get a chance to explore it, but I’m looking forward to the Lavastorm revamp (much as I did the Everfrost revamp).